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Secondary education

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Teaching maths when you only have GCSE

104 replies

xsquared · 19/06/2018 19:34

Not me, but I have several colleagues whose subject specialism is not maths, but either because of a shortage of qualified maths teachers, or for whatever reason, they are teaching numeracy or maths up to GCSE foundation level.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a snob and there are plenty of effective teachers who are not officially "qualified". On the other hand, I have seen several examples of poor understanding of maths from the teacher, leading to giving wrong information to the class.

What is there to do? Nobody wants to teach maths anymore.

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grandmainmypocket · 21/06/2018 20:02

Some people like myself want to teach maths but I had such a horrific experience in one of my training schools that I left teaching.
Now I tutor if and when I can. I love maths.

Schools need to support teachers but.........

user1499173618 · 21/06/2018 20:04

Piggy - what is wrong with a native speaker Spanish teacher who is qualified to teach history in Spain teaching Spanish MFL in the UK? That sounds fine to me.

user1499173618 · 21/06/2018 20:07

My DD had an English teacher whose first degree was in Spanish (as a foreign language) from a US university and who qualified as a chess teacher. Now that was a bit of a problem...

Piggywaspushed · 21/06/2018 20:09

Because she has no idea how to actually teach a language to those who don't speak it? teaching MFL is a rarefied and exacting art. Especially at A Level.

I think the proof of the pudding has been in the eating with this one.

Piggywaspushed · 21/06/2018 20:12

She also quite clearly does not remotely have the skills to teach Spanish lit or film to rather uncultured 17 year olds with a passing acquaintance with the target language at GCSE. It does, however, explain why they have spent virtually the whole year doing the Spanish culture bit of the spec.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 21/06/2018 20:51

Not unlike my year 9 German teacher then, piggy. Although I’m not sure she had any relevant degree level qualification other than being German. Certainly her behaviour management skills left a lot to be desired.

I suspect a number of our teachers might have been eaten alive in another school given their behaviour management issues.

Piggywaspushed · 21/06/2018 21:02

Yes, that is one of the issues.

I taught German to year 9s years ago. There is no way I could pass muster now, even with my A at A level and my German Lit in my degree!

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 21/06/2018 21:30

You’re probably less likely to be led astray by a long list of weird things that are apparently totally normal in a British school and all teachers let us do though Grin

Piggywaspushed · 21/06/2018 21:31

True !

Snowysky20009 · 22/06/2018 00:02

Phoned a friend once asked what she was up too- marking some GCSE English and maths work as she was taking 2 lessons of these each per week.

She sat her GCSE Maths and English three times before getting a C....

PurpleCrowbar · 22/06/2018 11:07

@noblegiraffe - my school is an international overseas one.

We do get quite a lot of 'joining the foreign legion' types - escaping the UK/elsewhere for personal reasons...not necessarily brilliant, dedicated teachers. Professional requirements are a bit woolly - notoriously American trained colleagues struggle with the British curriculum here in some subjects.

Then there are the 'gap yah' types who have somehow acquired a PGCSE or equivalent but just fancy a bit of fancy expat lifestyle for a year or two.

Then of course international teaching attracts 'rolling stones' anyway. Some of them are quite adept at moving on every 2 years before their first set of external results come out.

Then there are those who've taught nice biddable private school kids somewhere where education is hugely valued & parents appreciative. Ours are the kids of local bigwigs - politicians & CEOs. They require good classroom management (& amazing parent handling skills...). Ironically, for all where I am now is seen as a super posh school - the most successful colleagues tend to be battle hardened veterans of rough comprehensives.

Because everyone is on an initial fixed term 2 year contract - then renewed in yearly increments - there is little or no performance management.

If you pass your initial 3 months probation, but are a bit crap, nothing will be done about it until renewal time in January when you will be quietly told to start job hunting.

Also, we can't easily replace mid year. New staff have to be flown out, accommodation found, families found places at the school, visas & work permits arranged, etc etc. So easier for SLT to hang on to the warm bodies they have.

Plus appointment is by Skype. No one actually sees you teach till you get there & are in a classroom!

Disclaimer: vast majority of my colleagues are brilliant. But we do get the occasional disaster, & then we are very much lumbered with them.

user1499173618 · 22/06/2018 15:13

PurpleCrowbar - thank you for that post, most enjoyable!

Witchend · 22/06/2018 15:39

My df did his A-level maths same time as his teacher. He got a B, teacher got a D. :D

xsquared · 22/06/2018 16:06

Hold on, your df’s A Level teacher sat A Level again and got a D? Really?

I have a few colleagues who resat their GCSE, at the same time as their students, to get a better grade, but still ended up with Cs on the higher paper.

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noblegiraffe · 22/06/2018 16:20

Those aren’t the colleagues teaching maths surely?

noblegiraffe · 22/06/2018 16:22

purple what do the parents say when their kid gets a crap one?

xsquared · 22/06/2018 16:24

Yes, noble, albeit at foundation.

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xsquared · 22/06/2018 16:26

I have not heard of any parents complaining about any member of staff about their maths ability. The students however, do spot mistakes from time to time.

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noblegiraffe · 22/06/2018 16:28

Omg x, that’s worse than ‘a bit rubbish’. I hate the idea that weak kids can have weak teachers and it won’t matter because they’re only teaching the easy stuff. Of course it matters.

xsquared · 22/06/2018 16:42

I know, noble. It’s really hard to not say anything as I don’t want to undermine them. On the other hand, they seem happy enough to ask me to teach them something that they’re going to teach in the next lesson.

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PurpleCrowbar · 22/06/2018 17:05

Noble - more maths than anything else, in fact.

My evil top set y11s were very proud of the fact that they'd seen off 6 maths teachers in their 2 years. They (well, the four or so super bright obnoxious kids who dominated the group) were practically running a book on how fast they could get rid.

My proudest achievement in 20 years teaching was surviving that English group.

Our results are 100% pass at gcse & over 50% A/A*. Small classes & lots of intervention.

Also, we weed out a lot of the trickier customers prior to IB.

Parents are generally of the 'meh we will hire a tutor' mindset if their kid lands in a, ahem, challenging group.

SpicyTomatos · 22/06/2018 17:08

I occasionally think it would be a nice idea to train as a maths teacher, but I am put off by the number of current teachers complaining about the workload and management.

Also, I'm not sure I would be any good at it and there is no easy way to find out.

And then there are the rules. Not sure I would ever want to go back to silly classroom rules. I hated them when at school and wouldn't want to be the enforcer. I know that statement probably means I would be a bad teacher.

That's all before considering the pay cut and that the training is quite hard.

Sadik · 22/06/2018 17:11

For various reasons DD had regular self study periods in the ALN room through yr 10 & 11. She ended up spending them helping struggling foundation pupils who were meant to be getting 'special help' with maths and their LSAs - who apparantly were just as stuck on the papers as the kids they were 'supporting' . . .

(Very good for dd socially - but not, I'm sure, what those pupils' parents expected from their extra support.)

TheFallenMadonna · 22/06/2018 17:51

I'm a non specialist Maths teacher. I am a scientist (and later psychologist) by training. I have done SKE. I am pretty comfortable with the Maths, but what I needed was the subject focused pedagogy.

Oakmaiden · 22/06/2018 18:00

slovenlys

Hello from another "can't-get-a-job-and-have-given-up-trying" South Wales teacher.

It's insane.